Jeff has covered Massachusetts Minutemen basketball for The Maroon and White and The Daily Hampshire Gazette. He has also written for The Daily Orange. Jeff is an Amherst, Massachusetts native, and graduated from Syracuse University in 2006. Follow him on Twitter @jeffreyirvine.
The Orange needs Cooney to play efficiently, and if Cooney is going to play efficiently then Howard and Joseph need to prove themselves as adequate back ups and give the guy a rest.
or the third year running, I will be projecting the minutes of the incoming freshmen on the Syracuse Men’s Basketball team using the power of statistics.
Given that the last time Syracuse’s starting lineup measured more than 397 inches the team won the National Championship, this is good news for Orange fans.
Dion Waiters and Michael Carter-Williams leapt from small roles as freshmen to lottery picks after impressive sophomore campaigns. Tyler Ennis made the jump before he even arrived on campus.
You won’t have to listen to commentators who spend the entire season asking why Syracuse doesn’t switch to man-to-man defense rave about how stifling Boeheim’s 2-3 zone is.
There are many small things to fix, but each has shown signs of improvement. If a few of these negatives manage to flip positive in the final eight games of the season, the Orange will have built a strong foundation to build on in 2015-2016.
But let’s assume that no one on the current team leaves, and Syracuse is unable to land Bryant. Kentucky, always a hot destination for recruits, has been giving Syracuse a run for Bryant recently, anyway. What then?